


On Survival

by batshape



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Mourning, Post-Sirion, Third Kinslaying (Tolkien), some allusion to the death of maedhros but nothing concrete or explicit, the thankless enduring existences of eldest sibling(s), the twins arriving in mandos at the same time: the war criminals are fightingggg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25633375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/batshape/pseuds/batshape
Summary: “He will not thank you,” Makalaurë spat, “when it all is done.”-Following the deaths of their youngest brothers, there is an attempt to keep from unravelling.
Relationships: Maedhros | Maitimo & Maglor | Makalaurë
Comments: 10
Kudos: 47





	On Survival

He was very still before the fire. 

Makalaurë hesitated. He tightened his grip on the cup in his hands, for it was still warm.

They had not spoken since the pyre. Then, before those flames, they had stood together, watched the last of their brothers be set alight, and Makalaurë had hesitated then too.

Steam curled over the lip of the cup. Makalaurë hummed, and it retreated back across his fingers and disappeared.

He crouched beside his brother, before the light.

“This is for you,” he said quietly, and offered him the cup. Maitimo did not immediately take it. Nor did he look at him. “If you want to sleep.”

“I am on watch,” Maitimo replied stiffly. Makalaurë held the cup before him still.

“You are not.” Carefully. He noted the dark yet staining Maitimo’s forearms and frowned. Refrained from comment. “I checked with the watch already. Not one made any mention of you.”

“I do not want to sleep.”

Makalaurë withdrew the offered tea. “Noted.”

“What did you do with them?” Elwing’s twins, Makalaurë knew. He settled against the hard, sandy ground and tilted his head.

“Sang. They will sleep until late morning.”

“It is a bad idea.”

“Singing?”

Maitimo did not reply. Makalaurë felt creeping warmth in his face, and he conceded.

“It is a worse idea to kill them,” Makalaurë said finally. The words were quiet.

“They would not be your first slaughtered babes,” countered Maitimo coolly. Makalaurë scowled.

“Nor yours,” he replied. In the firelight, his brother might have sneered. The expression slid from his face a moment after its forming, but Makalaurë saw orange light flood the crooked valleys of his face, revealing the brief, cruel curve of his mouth.

“You argue my own point now.”

“Nelyo.”

Silence reigned between them. Somewhere further into camp, someone was singing a mourning lament.

“They are leaving in scores,” said Maitimo, gaze cast somewhere far beyond the two of them. “You have seen it too, I imagine.”

Makalaurë had. He knew not what to do for it, and so he did not wish to discuss it. He could hardly exact the punishment for desertion tonight, with blood yet on his tongue from his first slaughter of the day.

“I think you should sleep,” said Makalaurë instead. His brother did not look at him. 

“How fortunate then,” replied Maitimo flatly, “that the decision is not yours to make.”

“It could be.”

The words were sharper than he meant them, invoking more of a threat than Makalaurë had intended. But he met his brother’s sharp new gaze evenly, and Maitimo bared his teeth.

“But you could not Sing fast enough,” he rasped, “to avoid serious injury first.”

Makalaurë shrugged.  _ Perhaps.  _ “Nelyo.”

Maitimo tipped his gaze to the stars. He did not demand  _ what?  _ except in that gesture alone. 

He looked a weary king, in that moment. He had not been a king for many years, and yet Makalaurë remembered the fatal heaviness of his movements then.

“You are not responsible for their coming. We both know that they would have had to come, whether you sent for them or not.”

“That does not negate the fact of the matter—“

“Which is?”

The dark stain was blood still tracked up his arms, still painted on his neck, dried thick in his hair. Makalaurë could smell it, in such plenty that the iron-salt scent of it filled his throat. He looked away from his brother for a moment so that he could swallow his disgust.

Maitimo noticed. He sneered again, but only barely.

“I still sent for them,” he answered grimly. “And I would have sent for them regardless, had I known.”

Makalaurë remained quiet. He had known this, truthfully, and had known that Makalaurë, in his brother’s place, would likely have done the same. But it was different to confess it. Different to allow the words to expand in the dark between them, with ashes yet in their mouths.

Hollowly, Maitimo laughed. “I cannot sleep,” he admitted. He gazed into the fire. “I will see them all.”

“Nelyo—“

“What?”

_ You are not the only one who dreams.  _ He wanted it to offend, wanted it dripping with a younger brother’s resentment, wanted it to wound in its reminder than grief did not make Maitimo  _ special  _ anymore than it made Makalaurë good. But he could not say it. It would prompt a quarrel, which Makalaurë would lose, because he was vain in his grief too.

Instead he said: “At least let me wash the gore from your hair.”

But Maitimo looked no more ashamed of his physical state now that it had been mentioned aloud. He tilted his head.

“I am fine as I am.”

“You reek of blood,” Makalaurë replied evenly. “You look like a corpse yourself.”

“I am fine as I am.”

“Maitimo. You look like a fright.”

“And there would not be children here to be frightened if  _ you _ had not brought them.”

Makalaurë looked at him with reproach. Unrepentant, Maitimo inclined his head.

“I do not think that you are frightening only to children, Nelyo,” Makalaurë said, and his brother smiled mirthlessly.

“Frightening to you?” Maitimo supplied, and the question was derisive. Makalaurë looked away.

“I did not say that either.”

“You did not have to.” Maitimo studied his fingers. Added, quietly: “I have stopped smelling the blood.”

“Then let me help you.”

Maitimo did not look up again. Makalaurë allowed the quiet to stretch. He crossed his legs beneath him and traced a finger soundlessly around the rim of the cup.

At last, Maitimo whispered: “Alright.”

Makalaurë stood fluidly. He passed his brother the cup—well on its way to cooling now—and announced, “Then I will be back in a moment. Hold this, please.”

Maitimo accepted the cup, set it beside himself on the sandy ground. He appeared even more weary than he had minutes before. Makalaurë reckoned that he could have sung him to sleep in moments, if he cared less for keeping his teeth while he did it.

He returned promptly with a basin of water; he had ordered it prepared earlier in the evening, and unlike his brother’s tea, the water had kept warm. He departed again, and reappeared with one of his own packs, and a small chest for precious oils which Makalaurë had been given as a gift in a time forgotten. (He thought perhaps Carnistir had done the giving, the box and the oils obtained from trade in the Blue Mountains, and wished he had not forgotten this too.) Makalaurë’s father-name had been wrought into the lid of the chest, and the sight of it in his hands made his brother close his eyes.

“Kano,” Maitimo murmured, but Makalaurë only hummed a single note and knelt beside him. He cast off his cloak and folded up his own sleeves.

“Is any of this yours?” Makalaurë asked, meaning the blood, and his brother shook his head. Still, Makalaurë turned over his hand and looked among the calluses for tearing. His fingernails, the rough skin of his palm, were tacky with drying gore, none of which seemed to originate from within his own person. “What about the rest of you?”

Again, Maitimo shook his head. Makalaurë nodded.

“Tip your head back.”

If Maitimo objected to receiving orders now, he did not show it. He tipped his head back, and Makalaurë wet a cloth with the water from the tub and set about washing the blood from his brother’s face.

And Makalaurë felt the shudder, and he scorned it before he realized that it had come from himself. 

And once it had begun, he could not still it, and he loathed this too, even before he recalled the additional humiliation of his audience. Beneath his wrist, Maitimo had opened his eyes. 

His elder brother watched him silently, as Makalaurë’s fingers began to twitch, instinctively, to preserve the fragile peace of his own expression. He did not want to weep here. He could not bear the thought of weeping here while his only remaining brother did not, could not bear the thought that Makalaurë might mourn and Maitimo might only observe him with the cool distaste one showed for an ill-performed spectacle.

But Makalaurë had cleaned the blood from the faces of five dead brothers; just today he had washed gore from the hands of the twins and then tipped oil for burning over their bright hair. Makalaurë was very tired.

Quietly, Maitimo said, “Kano.”

_ Kano. _

And his brother gripped his wrist, roughly but not cruelly, and Makalaurë sat back heavily on his heels. He gritted his teeth.

“Kano,” Maitimo repeated, as softly as Maitimo could do anything now. “You do not need to—“

“I do,” said Makalaurë from between his teeth, harshly, because Makalaurë could be just as cold and just as rough as his brother if he wanted. “I  _ do. _ ”

And Maitimo regarded him plainly. Makalaurë dragged his free hand over his eyes, so he did not have to meet his brother’s gaze. Maitimo’s wan expression said,  _ You are not the only one who mourns. _

But Makalaurë wanted for Maitimo to show it. He had grown weary of many things—among them, his brother’s stoic laconism. He missed the Maitimo who smiled, certainly, but more so he missed the Maitimo who wept.

_ I hate you _ , he thought to say, simply to demand a reaction,  _ I hate you, and what you have done to us. _

But really, was that just? Makalaurë had drawn his own swords, each time. Makalaurë had lifted his own voice in Songs of compelled death, each time. Had Makalaurë not also done what Maitimo had done? It did not matter that he had not been eager, like Tyelkormo, or careless, like the Ambarussat, or grimly accepting of it, like Maitimo. Makalaurë had damned himself too, and damned his brothers with him, each time.

And had he not  _ been _ eager, truthfully, and had he not been careless? Had he not thought it  _ necessary _ , for the sake of pride and the sake of his father’s memory and then the memory of each of his brothers, one by one as they had died? Makalaurë had killed in Carnistir’s name more than once, and he had vainly imagined himself eking out some type of  _ vengeance  _ for Curufinwë, for Tyelkormo—but really, he had only wanted the blood. Elwing had not been responsible for the deaths of his brothers in Menegroth any more than her sons were responsible for the deaths of his brothers at Sirion, and Makalaurë had known that as well then as he did now.

_ I hate you, and what you have done to us.  _

Still, it was an easy refrain. Easier than any other.

“Kano,” said Maitimo. Now, his tone was cool. He still held his brother by his shaking wrist, and Makalaurë considered the peril of tearing his hand away. “You have something to say.”

It was a challenge. Makalaurë felt his gaze tip downward, his expression soften, even before he thought to defer. He bowed, and he said nothing.

“You are so keen to despise me,” murmured Maitimo, dangerously. “But you will never admit it, will you?”

Makalaurë would not. He could not. Even to think it felt like a betrayal of something greater than the two of them, like a grave insult to five brothers and a father who had not lived to see their legacy pared down to petty confessions of hatred between those two who would survive.

Maitimo said, “Confess it.”

And Makalaurë snatched his own wrist back to his chest. He raised his head, and looked his brother in the eye.

Said he: “Do you  _ want _ me to despise you, Nelyo?”

His brother’s sneer was terrible enough to cause Makalaurë to recoil. Briefly, Makalaurë wondered if Maitimo was right, that he feared him now. He did not think that he did.

He did not think he despised him either. He did not think he could despise him, even if he had wished to. He had loved Maitimo too dearly for that, and he yet cherished the memory of that love too dearly to try.

“Does it matter if I want it?” asked Maitimo flatly. Makalaurë had accomplished very little in the washing of his face except the dampening of dried blood at his left temple. “I do not think my wanting changes the matter.”

Makalaurë laughed, just once. “You have said that much too often now, Nelyo.” 

_ Confess it. _

“Then do you wish for my permission to hate me, Kano?” Maitimo tilted his head. “Do you need that? Do you need me to tell you that it makes you  _ good _ , that if you hate me then your own evils will be expunged?” He smiled, a terrible splitting of his face. “Do you want to be  _ comforted _ , that at least you are not like  _ me?” _

Makalaurë snapped his teeth.  _ Confess it. Confess it. Confess it. _

“He will not thank you,” Makalaurë spat, “when it all is done.”

Maitimo regarded him with deathly removal in his face. He said, “You are not truly stupid enough to think that gratitude is what makes this all necessary.”

Makalaurë knew the truth of that. He did. But he was also angry, and he had ceased to be gentle long ago, and the truth did not matter to him now. For he was  _ angry.  _ And truthfully, he had missed his own anger as much as he missed Maitimo’s weeping.

“You do not grieve,” Makalaurë accused, as harshly as he could. The sharpness of the words made something in Maitimo’s gaze flicker, and he thought his brother might have flinched. “You do not. You pretend that you do, so that you can think to yourself that you are not so far gone, but I watch you and you do not  _ feel  _ it, Maitimo, truly, do you—”

A sound, the crack of bone against bone, preceded the pain in his face, and Makalaurë realized only belatedly that he had been struck. He blinked, dizzily, and then he bared his canines. There was new blood in his mouth, new blood on his teeth and tongue, for he had bitten down when Maitimo had hit him, and the taste of it was grounding. He looked, and saw that Maitimo had risen to his full height, while Makalaurë remained on his knees.

“Go,” ordered Maitimo levelly, though he sounded as terrible as he had in the first months after Thangorodrim, when his throat had been ragged both from torment and the screaming elicited from said torment, and he had spoken with the broken, harshest tones of a scout of the Enemy. “Now, Kano. Go.”

“Maitimo.” Softly. The anger had leached from him with this new sound of his brother’s voice. And Makalaurë had erred in what he had said, he knew. His brother was shaking now, and Makalaurë first ascribed the trembling to rage. But, upon closer examination, he saw the way that his brother folded his hand over his eyes. “Maitimo. I am sorry.”

“Kano,” said Maitimo, and the tremble had made its way into his most awful voice. “Leave.”

_ Confess it. _

“Maitimo,” Makalaurë repeated, almost too quietly. He felt that he should weep now, if only he could muster the energy. He understood now, perhaps, why Maitimo did not weep. “That was untrue. I am sorry.”

“Kano.”

_ Leave. _

Makalaurë gathered to himself his sleeves, the small chest of hair oils, and the cup of tea which he had offered his brother first, and he stood. Beside Maitimo, he left the basin of water, the bloodied cloth with which he had intended to wash the grime from his face—and upon greater consideration, he placed the chest which Carnistir had given him beside the basin. Maitimo did not look upon him; standing as he was, he stared terribly into the flame of the fire, and Makalaurë shuddered again.

He regretted what he had said, and not for the pain of his cheek. Maitimo would not forget the insult, and Makalaurë would be heavy with the guilt of it, and if the relationship between them had been contentious before, he could only imagine the frigidity that would result now.

Makalaurë realized that he did not want to see his brother weep. If Maitimo wept, surely then they were lost.

And yet he stood beside him, at a distance, and he cradled the cup between his hands. Surely Maitimo knew of his lingering presence, but he said nothing of it, as Makalaurë took several moments to arrange his thoughts into speech. 

_ Confess it. _

Said he, very quietly: “I do not despise you, Nelyo.”

Maitimo did not acknowledge this except in the tilting back of his head to the stars, which were not yet hidden from them even in the wake of all their evil. Makalaurë wished he would look upon him instead. Makalaurë himself could not bear to look upon the kindled lights of that black expanse.

He had a sudden notion that his brother was on the edge of something terrible, with his face tipped to the dark sky, and Makalaurë had the desire to grip him by the wrist and pull him away from the fire. Certainly, he was too close to the heat. Certainly, Makalaurë could suffer to touch his last remaining brother if it would save him.

_ Foolish _ , he thought. And much too soft. From what could he save Maitimo, with a touch? Makalaurë had proven himself no healer, and even less of a heart’s comfort. Such arrogance disguised as sentiment—that he could  _ save _ , that his brother was someone who  _ needed _ saving—would earn him scorn, not gratitude. And perhaps rightfully so.

But did he want gratitude? Did Makalaurë, too, crave thanks which he would not receive? This unpleasant thought, above them all, nearly coaxed him to turn away and leave, as he had been bidden.

_ You are not truly stupid enough to believe that gratitude is what makes this all necessary. _

And Maitimo still trembled, visibly, in the flickering light of flame. Makalaurë remained.

“I do not despise you, Nelyo,” he repeated quietly. “And I do not hate you, nor do I blame you any more than I also blame myself. I am sorry that I have shown you otherwise.”

_ Come away from the fire.  _ He wanted to add this to his confession, wanted to beg in the silly, sentimental way he had in his youth.  _ Maitimo. Come away from the flame. _

He thought he could not bear to see another brother burn.

And Maitimo had gripped the hands of Ambarto and Ambarussa, folded as they were over their chests, and Makalaurë who had just washed them clean had watched his brother smear sticky blood against their palms.  _ It should not have happened this way _ , Makalaurë had said, terribly, uselessly, and it could have meant any number of preferred outcomes, not the least among them a Silmaril in their possession. But Maitimo had gazed at him, flat, as if it had been an accusation, that Maitimo yet remained alive while the twins did not.

“I cannot sleep either,” Makalaurë confessed now, with a begging pitch to the words. “I am too afraid that they will speak.”

“And they will not say thank you,” Maitimo answered quietly, and Makalaurë looked upon him in harsh offense until he saw the grim upward curve to his mouth. Reluctantly, Makalaurë shook his head.

“No,” he said. “They will not.”

Makalaurë studied the dim orange outline of his brother’s shoulders as if the memory of the slant would save them both. He said, after an eternity’s silence: “I can promise that you will not dream, if I Sing.”

But Maitimo only laughed, and it was a terrible, hollow sound which made Makalaurë flinch to hear it. His brother turned, and silhouetted in the light of the campfire, even with the blood thick in his hair and up his arms, he looked like another life. He gazed upon Makalaurë like he did not understand—like Maitimo was desperate for Makalaurë to understand, and like he had finally decided that he would not.

“Kano,” Maitimo said, very quietly. The pitch to his name was gentle now, in a way that Makalaurë resented for the way it made him want to plead for Maitimo to say it again.  _ Kano. _ It had been a name meant for fondness, before. It had been meant for softness. 

“Kano,” repeated Maitimo, as Makalaurë looked at him and thought of pleading _.  _ “Please go.”

And Makalaurë dipped his head. He turned, and he went.

Maitimo held his stained palm over the licking orange flame for as long as he could bear the heat, and then he drew back his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of thoughts about the use of Quenya names, in particular the keeping of the name Maitimo after the events of Thangorodrim, the Quenya ban, and the increasingly morally reprehensible actions of Maedhros in Beleriand. I won't expound on them here, but I did want to make clear that I imagine the keeping of the name was contentious, both personally and politically, and that it wasn't done without much internal debate and thought. (I certainly thought about it, and decided using Maitimo here, within this context, would make the most sense.)
> 
> you can find me on tumblr at batshape.tumblr.com


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